"I can't see my face, but if it's like hers? Almost Alien Like?? Who's The Alien Now???"
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Guardian of Destiny by R. Scott Johnson Trafford Publishing
book review by Peter M. Fitzpatrick
"Love Thy Neighbor" is suggested as the hardest of any God's rules for humans to follow. A worldwide conflagration takes place in the near future, with civilization falling and man reduced to a struggle for survival. Children aged from 10 to 13 start to receive premonitions that they will be whisked off the planet. Those with a pure "Ora," a coloration surrounding them that a race called "Massiah" can see with special lenses called the All-Seeing, can detect. The Massiah are our Guardians of Destiny, and have intervened here to save civilization in the past. They transport the humans to a place called Eaven and then on to a place called Ell. On Ell they must stay pure, and by pacifying two warring factions, the Hellions and the Satans, they succeed in teaching how to love one's neighbor and earn their return to Earth.
This story is told in an informal style, with almost conversational structure. The broad concepts are easily discernible in the concrete personifications which the writer has artfully contrived. The theme of man's ability to co-exist with others is interestingly explored through the science fiction-like exposition of religious concepts like heaven, hell, Satan, and Messiah being placed in unusual framing. The plot is a rather simple one of test and struggle, the characterization only slightly deeper than surface. This allows the writer to shape the story into a meditation on his theme. Short and powerful, with delightfully rendered hand-drawn illustrations, the end result is both illuminating and entertaining.